I’ve blogged before about some deceptively attractive plants that can be lethal when ingested, and I’ve recently discovered one more to add to the list.

Parts of the beautiful, flowering narcissus plant can be quite poisonous and deadly! Narcissus is a popular ornamental plant for personal gardens, community parks and as cut flowers in the spring and early summer. But it can be as toxic as it is beautiful and is on the list of the top ten most poisonous plants in the world.

The Tulipa/Narcissus plant species, with up to 60 different varieties, originally came from Holland. This plant is commonly known by its three most popular varieties: the narcissus, the jonquil and the daffodil. All species of the narcissus plant family, however, contain a common deadly element: the poison lycorine.

Lycorine is a toxic crystalline alkaloid that is highly poisonous, and can be fatal if enough of the plant is ingested. Lycorine is found mostly in the bulbs of the narcissus plant family, but it is also present in the leaves.

This alkaloid inhibits protein synthesis. Depending on the amount consumed, the poison can produce intense gastrointestinal irritation, drooling, loss of appetite, headaches, low blood pressure, central nervous system depression, convulsions and cardiac abnormalities. If someone is given a large enough dose, death could result.

The Handbook of Poisonous and Injurious Plantsby Lewis S. Nelson et al describes the symptoms of narcissus poisoning well and warns that children under six are especially vulnerable.

An interesting side note is that florists who handle the plant’s leaves often develop a stubborn dermatitis. The condition is called “daffodil itch” and the symptoms include dryness, skin cracking and fissures, scaling and extreme redness of the skin. There is also an accompanying thickening of the skin beneath the nails from exposure to the plant’s sap.

The daffodil variety of Tulipa/Narcissus is responsible for many accidental poisonings since the daffodil bulbs look so similar to onions and might mistakenly be substituted in cooking for onions. There is evidence in literature that consumption of one or two daffodil bulbs could prove lethal for the average adult human.

On May 1st, 2009 school children at a primary school in Martlesham Heath, Suffolk, England became seriously ill after a single daffodil bulb was added to soup by mistake during a cooking class.

So the next time you’re searching for an interesting method to kill off a character in your story, have another character cook up a batch of onion soup using several daffodil bulbs instead. The soup will be deliciously deadly!

Thoughts? Comments? I’d love to hear them!

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About James J. Murray, Fiction Writer

With experience in both pharmaceutical manufacturing and clinical patient management, medications and their impact on one’s quality of life have been my expertise. My secret passion of murder and mayhem, however, is a whole other matter. I’ve always loved reading murder mysteries and thrillers, and longed to weave such tales of my own. Drawing on my clinical expertise as a pharmacist and my infatuation with the lethal effects of drugs, my tales of murder, mayhem and medicine will have you looking over your shoulder and suspicious of anything in your medicine cabinet.

Thank you James, a very interesting read! Beyond the benefit of using this information in one of our novels or short stories, I wonder how many of your readers have both daffodils and pets. Would the toxicity be the same for say, dogs and cats if they began chewing on the leaves or dug up the bulbs and ate one? Would a good rule of thumb be if we have pets who frequent our yards, get rid of the daffodils?

You bring up an interesting and throught-proviking point. According to the research I’ve found, much has been written about deadly poisonings for dog and cat pets. Having daffodils in your gardens along with curious pets, might invite a safety issue and I would error on the side of caution and replace those daffodils with other equally-attractive flowering plants. Thanks for your comments!

Oh, how I wish I would have known all of this about 4 days ago! I transplanted some daffodil bulbs the other day, clipping the leaves and stems off of them first, and I now have “daffodil itch” covering the entirety of the insides of both forearms. I have never heard of this before. It is very itchy and irritating. I do not recommend it. Please, everyone, wear gloves and long sleeves when transplanting or clipping daffodils!